'Other Woman' delves into dad's other love — drugs

Former San Antonio Express-News staff writer Tunette Powell, with her father, Bruce Callis, fields questions about her book, “The Other Woman,” which details her life as a child of a drug addict-prison inmate. The gathering was at The Twig Book Shop.

Photo By San Antonio Express-News

Former San Antonio Express-News staff writer Tunette Powell reads a passage from her book "The Other Woman" which details her life as a child of an addict at The Twig Book Store, Feb. 23, 2013.

Photo By San Antonio Express-News

Former San Antonio Express-News staff writer Tunette Powell signs a copy of her book "The Other Woman" which details her life as a child of an addict at The Twig Book Store, Feb. 23, 2013.

Photo By San Antonio Express-News

Former San Antonio Express-News staff writer Tunette Powell reads a passage from her book "The Other Woman" which details her life as a child of an addict at The Twig Book Store, Feb. 23, 2013.

Photo By San Antonio Express-News

Former San Antonio Express-News staff writer Tunette Powell (left) signs a copy of her book "The Other Woman" which details her life as a child of an addict for Montrice Sheppard (right) at The Twig Book Store, Feb. 23, 2013.

Photo By Courtesy photo

Inside the dark apartment, junkies clustered around a lit stove to keep warm. In a back bedroom, roaches skittered along the sides of a tattered mattress. People were plopped against the walls, eyes half-closed, lost in cocaine highs.

A young man took a hit from a crack pipe, and another, chasing the elusive high he'd sought since he was first ushered into the hazy world of drugs. He felt good as the drug shot through his body. But as the sun rose into the sky, his high melted away. It was time for another score.

Such are the childhood memories captured in “The Other Woman” by Tunette Powell about her dad's struggles as a crack addict on San Antonio's East Side. (“The Other Woman” alludes to her father's other love, drugs.)

Bruce Callis, 51, had dabbled in drugs since a dealer recruited him to sell marijuana in the summer of 1975. A high school freshman, he began sampling his own product and years later started smoking crack cocaine. It developed into a habit that led to multiple arrests, several stints in Texas prisons and years where he was more of an addict than a father.

But Callis has been Powell's main ally, encouraging her to chronicle his drug addiction's effect on her family.

“It's got to be gritty,” he told her, “don't sugarcoat it.”

Callis said he pulled Powell aside at a book release party when some people mentioned they weren't thrilled with the honesty in the book.

“You just remember why you wrote the book, and you don't let anyone stop you,” he said. “I'm good with the book, and you're good with the book, and that's all that matters.”

Powell has memories of her dad selling the family's Christmas toys out of a car trunk for drugs on the East Side. One day he left to get milk with her mother's last $20, not returning for days. And there's the image of the empty spot where their VCR once sat, one more item her father had stolen away to a pawn shop.

Powell started writing to vent her frustration. Supported by faith and family, her journal evolved into a book about redemption and healing. The book is helping Powell — now 27 years old and working as a blogger at the Omaha World-Herald in Omaha, Neb. — move on with her life.

She said that to tell her story, she had to ignore society's unwritten rule of not divulging family business.

“I had to address the bones in my closet. It just shows I'm not a perfect person,” she said. “No matter how far I go, all the things my dad did still follow me. He's not the villain; addiction is the villain.”

Intellect before emotion

The day before a recent San Antonio book reading, Powell and her father talked about their lives at his mother's East Side home. Though he was in and out of prison since the early '90s, they said their bond has always been strong.

“If I can see some happiness or hope in her, then I can feel it in myself,” Callis said.

Drawn by the lure of quick money, he started dealing drugs when he was 14 years old. He started smoking marijuana then dabbled in LSD and heroin before becoming addicted to crack cocaine. He supported his habit by pawning family possessions to the point that his wife wrote, “Do not pawn,” on the side of their television.

He served time at several penitentiaries, including the Darrington Unit in Rosharon, Huntsville and Dominguez. He's been out of the prison system since 2008, and this year he graduated from the San Antonio Food Bank Community Kitchen Culinary Training Program.

“In cooking we have a word, 'marinate,'” Callis said. “It hadn't penetrated through the tissue of my soul. I always had a problem accepting things in my life. I thought I'd be dead right now; I never saw the future.”

As a small child, there were nights Powell fell asleep at the front door, waiting for her dad to return from a crack house. But she would never admit how much his absences hurt her. She grew up living her father's golden rule, “I before E,” or intellect before emotion, shunning any display of feeling behind a shield of bravado.

In her book, Powell writes that for a long time she pretended as if her father's addiction didn't affect her.

“Growing up, I spent so many nights crying and begging God to deliver my father. But I never prayed for myself. I just pushed my feelings aside because I didn't want to be guilty of violating my father's golden rule.”

That led to bad behavior throughout her school years, a distraction from yearning for a father's love and her defense mechanism when kids called her father a crackhead. And in his letters to her from prison, when he wrote her about scuffles with inmates, she embraced his battles, continuing the fights in school with classmates — one thing she could share with him while he was away.

Forgiveness and faith kept her mother Tulane Holder married to Powell's father for 16 years. She taught her kids to understand that he had a problem and to always love him.

“Parents need to teach their kids to love under any situation and hate the sin,” Holder said. “It doesn't mean you have to condone their actions.”

But in 1996, she realized she had to choose between his habit and her children. After 16 years of stolen property, bail payments and shattered promises, she filed for divorce.

Throughout her childhood, Powell and Callis corresponded by letters, and there were family visits in Texas prisons.

While in jail, Callis encouraged Powell, who he calls Nette, to follow her love of writing. He suggested she email former Express-News columnist Cary Clack for help. Clack helped her get a summer internship in 2005 at the newspaper. In 2006, she was hired as an editorial assistant, a job she held for four years.

Powell is looking ahead. She said when her two sons, Jason Jr., 3, and Joah, 23 months old, are old enough, she'll tell them their family's story.

“I want my kids to know where they came from,” she said. “I'm going to remind them there's power in the truth.”

Natural speaker

Three years ago, Powell moved to Omaha with her husband, Jason. Her life took a turn while studying at the University of Nebraska at Omaha when her speech professor encouraged her to join the speech team. Powell used the pain from the years her father's addiction had stolen from her to win debates against challengers with more speaking experience.

Her first-place win at the state level took her to Emerson College in Boston. Speaking out for her father and millions of addicts, she became the university's first persuasive speaking national champion for her speech, “It's not the addict, it's the drug: redefining America's war on drugs.”

Her father helped her write a line in her speech that read: “We recycle paper, aluminum and old electronics, but why don't we ever consider recycling the most precious thing on this earth, the human life.”

Cindy Grady, managing director of WriteLife, which published “The Other Woman,” said Powell called and pitched her story over the phone in 2012. “There are still family issues that people deal with every day, and here's someone with an extreme story that needs to be told,” said Grady in a phone call from Omaha.

Honesty is Freedom

Among the crowd at the reading were several of Powell's mentors from the Express-News. Callis' childhood friend, the Rev. Julius Sheppard, pastor of Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, was also in the audience.“She's telling it like her father told her,” Sheppard said. “Honesty is freedom.”

One of her mentors, Aissatou Sidimé-Blanton, watched Powell from beyond the crowd. Sidimé-Blanton, a former Express-News reporter, said Powell always had a clear vision about wanting to tell powerful stories.

“It's good to be able to say you helped someone fulfill their dream. We all need more true and wonderful, inspiring stories out in the world,” Sidimé-Blanton said.

Ongoing struggle

Powell scheduled her recent book reading to coincide with the week of her father's graduation from the Food Bank's culinary training program. But she wanted her visit to be a surprise. Two days before his graduation, Powell lied and told Callis she couldn't make the visit because of blizzard conditions in the Midwest.

He said he understood. On the day of his graduation, he looked out and saw his mother, older brother, two sisters, and son, Brushaud. As the ceremony began, he was shocked when Powell walked through the door with her younger brother, Boshavar, and called his name.

“That voice isn't supposed to be here,” he said, hugging his daughter. “It was like living someone else's life. It's as if it wouldn't really happen to me.”

At the book reading, Powell's mother sat in the front row, proud of her daughter's achievements.

“After I read the book, it was touching, but I never felt any hurt or pain,” Holder said. “I saw the joy, the healing, the forgiveness, the love that God can really do in the life of a family. I saw how he can take something that might have been so bad and bring the best of it out. With her writing style, she might be able to reach an audience that a lot of people haven't been able to tap into.”

Powell said she wants to write more books.

“I want to have a dialogue that people deserve a second chance,” she said. “And maybe third, fourth and fifth chances. I remember things he did right more than what he did wrong. I want them to see the little steps and stumbles, but that you still keep going.”